ITHACA, N.Y. -- Steven Stucky, the Given Foundation Professor of Music at Cornell University, has been awarded a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Stucky is one of two composers to win the $15,000 fellowship for 2002 and is among 17 recipients this year to receive awards in music from the academy. The Goddard Lieberson Fellowships were endowed in 1978 by the CBS Foundation in memory of the founder of Columbia Masterworks to recognize mid-career composers of "exceptional gifts."

Stucky, who has been a member of the Cornell music faculty since 1980, is considered one of the leading American composers of his generation. In recent years, he has received commissions from many of the major American orchestras, including Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Philadelphia and St. Louis, as well as from international groups such as Chanticleer, the Boston Musica Viva and the Camerata Bern. Other commissions have come from the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Howard Hanson Institute of American Music, Carnegie Hall, the British Broadcasting Corp., recorder soloist Michala Petri and guitarist Manuel Barrueco.

Last year, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano performed Stucky's string quartet Nell'ombra, nella luce in Mexico; in the United States, the Kansas City Chorale premiered his choral cycle Skylarks , and the Florida West Coast Symphony premiered his orchestration of Ravel's Noctuelles. Other Stucky work that has premiered within the past year include a new concerto for percussionist Gordon Stout, a new work for chorus by Chanticleer and a new work for strings by the Colburn Chamber Orchestra of Los Angeles. New recordings of Stucky's chamber music and a performance of his orchestral work Son et lumière are due out later this year. In January, the Singapore Symphony, under Shui Lan, recorded his Dreamwaltzes for release on the Swedish label Bis in 2003. Stucky also is active as a conductor. This season his new-music ensemble, Ensemble X, made its New York City debut in Merkin Hall and appeared at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Stucky also recently conducted the United States premiere of his recorder concerto Etudes, with Michala Petri and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group; next month he will record an all-Judith Weir disc with Ensemble X for Albany Records.

In addition to composing and conducting, Stucky also is active as a writer, lecturer and teacher. He has served as composer-in-residence and new music adviser of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and continues to serve as the orchestra's consulting composer for new music. The recipient of many awards, including the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Deems Taylor Prize for his 1981 book Lutoslawski and His Music (Cambridge University Press); a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986); and a Bogliasco Fellowship (1997), he also is visiting professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y.

Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is composed of the world's leading scientists, scholars, artists, business people and public leaders. The academy has a membership of 3,700 American fellows and 600 foreign honorary members.